Broad, subjective, relative: the surprising folk concept of basic needs

Philosophical Studies https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-023-02080-9 Broad, subjective, relative: the surprising folk concept of basic needs Thomas Pölzler1 · Tobu Tomabechi2 · Ivar R. Hannikainen3 Accepted: 4 November 2023 © The Author(s) 2023 Abstract Some normative theorists appeal to the concept of basic needs. They argue that when it comes to issues such as global justice, intergenerational justice, human rights or sustainable development our first priority should be that everybody is able to meet these needs. But what are basic needs? We attempt to inform discussions about this question by gathering evidence of ordinary English speakers’ intuitions on the concept of basic needs. First, we defend our empirical approach to analyzing this concept and identify a number of its potential features. Then we present three preregistered empirical studies that were conducted to investigate the extent to which ordinary speakers endorse these features. The studies yield convergent evidence for the following three claims: (1) ordinary speakers sometimes apply the concept of basic needs to necessities for a flourishing (not just a minimally decent) life, (2) most ordinary speakers attribute at least some degree of subjectivity to the concept, and (3) most ordinary speakers attribute at least some degree of relativity to the concept. We discuss the implications of these findings for philosophical analyses of basic needs. Keywords Basic needs · Experimental philosophy · Normative theory · Conceptual analysis * Thomas Pölzler http://thomaspoelzler.com Tobu Tomabechi Ivar R. Hannikainen 1 Department of Philosophy, University of Graz, Attemsgasse 25/II, 8010 Graz, Austria 2 Department of Social Psychology, University of Tokyo, 7‑3‑1 Hongo, Bunkyo‑Ku, Tokyo 113‑0033, Japan 3 Department of Philosophy I, University of Granada, Campus de la Cartuja, 18011 Granada, Spain 13 Vol.:(0123456789) T. Pölzler et al. 1 Introduction Normative theorists regularly appeal to the concept of basic needs. For example, they have argued that this concept is relevant to determining what we owe people who live in developing countries (e.g., Brock, 2009; Doyal & Gough, 1991) or in the future (e.g., Meyer & Pölzler, 2022; Wolf, 2009), to justifying human rights (e.g., Brock, 2005; Miller, 2007) and to defining the idea of sustainable development (e.g., WCED, 1987). For any needs-based normative theory to succeed it must involve a clear, wellsupported and operationalizable account of what basic needs are. In the 1980s and 1990s this issue sparked lively debate, as scholars developed a number of different definitions of basic needs (e.g., Braybrooke, 1987; Doyal & Gough, 1991; Frankfurt, 1988; Wiggins, 1998). However, with the advent of the capabilities approach (Sen, 1992, 1999), the concept somewhat fell out of favor again, and these discussions faded out before reaching full maturity. Today it therefore remains unclear and controversial how appeals to basic needs in normative theories are to be understood (as also pointed out, e.g., by Gasper, 2007; Hassoun, 2021). Our goal in this paper is to revive the debate about the meaning of the concept of basic needs in normative contexts. So far this meaning has primarily been stipulated in relation to theoretical or practical aims or informed by theorists’ introspective observations about their own or ordinary speakers’ conceptual intuitions. The approach employed in this paper, in contrast, is empirical. We contribute to analyses of basic needs in normative contexts by providing empirical evidence on ordinary speakers’ intuitions about this concept—similarly to how experimental philosophers have recently gathered such evidence in exploring various other concepts, such as knowledge, causation, intentional action or moral responsibility (e.g., Hitchcock & Knobe, 2009; Knobe, 2003; Machery et al., 2017; Nichols & Knobe, 2007).1 First, we will briefly defend our empirical approach to analyzing basic needs. Then we will identify and explain a number of potential features of the concept. Three preregistered empirical studies were conducted to investigate the extent to which ordinary English speakers endorse these features.2 Study 1 tested participants’ reactions to hypothetical cases in which a potential basic need lacks each of the features. Study 2 asked participants to report whether these same features are either 1 Both needs in general and basic needs in particular have of course been extensively studied in psychology before. For example, several researchers have recently empirically tested Maslow’s famous “hierarchy of needs” (e.g., Saeednia & Nor, 2013; Tay & Diener, 2011). Yet, these studies typically do not bear in any sufficiently direct way on attempts to define basic needs. They do not specifically investigate potential necessary or characteristic features of this concept; they do not proceed by presenting subjects with cases that may prompt conceptual intuitions; etc. 2 The studies’ registrations are accessible via the following anonymized links: Study 1: https://osf.io/t3yhz/?view_only=f0cad72ba22e4c098b82cebc86f4e194. Study 2: https://osf.io/ec3ar/?view_only=3acedf4710a84434970bc4c65fcafad9. Study 3: https://osf.io/yjwdq/?view_only=3a95107b92484bf39ba179f89fde8df9. All studies were approved by the IRB of the first author’s university. 13 Broad, subjective, relative: the surprising folk concept… contingently or necessarily true of basic needs. Finally, Study 3 asked participants to freely define basic needs in their own words. After having reported and discussed these studies, we will reflect on what these results suggest for philosophical analyses of the concept of basic needs. We will argue that they provide some initial evidence for broader, and against strongly objectivist and universalist, analyses. 2 The relevance of folk intuitions This paper is based on the claim that evidence about ordinary speakers’ intuitions can contribute to justifying philosophical analyses of the concept of basic needs. In what follows we will explain and provisionally support this claim. In the sense in which the term is used here, intuitions are dispositions to apply a concept in certain ways. These dispositions are pre-theoretical, i.e., they must not have been derived from any theory that the speaker holds (Kauppinen, 2007; Loeb, 2008). Thus, a person can be attributed the intuition that basic needs exemplifies some feature x if and only if that person is disposed to apply the concept to things that have x, and to refrain from applying the concept to things that lack x, without having derived this disposition from theories about basic needs or related matters. Many philosophers are internalists about the meaning of philosophical concepts (Jackson, 1998; Kauppinen, 2007; Loeb, 2008). Hence, they would readily accept that ordinary speakers’ intuitions in the above sense can contribute to justifying analyses of basic needs. This claim has sometimes be (...truncated)